Tag: Afghanistan
Lincoln was a lonely Republican
So Dana Milbank thinks the 50th anniversary did not live up to the original. I really can’t imagine how that would have been possible, but no doubt the Milbanks of 1963 gave the original a snarky review as well.
I enjoyed my couple of hours at the Wednesday event. Dana is right that John Lewis was better than the rest, but he is better than the rest most other days too. His consistency and persistence in advocating integration in every dimension of American life are welcome relief from the politicians who seek the next big thing. Not to mention his seemingly impeccable integrity.
If showing up is half the battle, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (I’m grateful to President Obama for giving up “Barry”) were winners. Bill did better: his declaration that it shouldn’t be easier to buy a gun in America than to vote is certainly a crowd pleaser on the left. The King family, unfortunnately, got the father’s desire to be heard but not his rhetorical gifts. But older sister Christine King Farris made a magnificent statement with her terrific hat.
The best part though was the music, which was a vital dimension in 1963 as well. I’m writing without the benefit of my program, so I won’t be able to cite singers and groups, but the church choir that was invoking the protection of God when I arrived about 2 pm was exactly what the occasion merited. The overly harmonized Star Spangled Banner wasn’t my thing, but the foxy (am I allowed to say that?) gospel singer who came on later was over the top.
As for the President, he made the appropriate allusions to progress and pushed for closing economic gaps, but he wasn’t all there. How could he be? Later in the day he made some of his clearest public remarks about Syria and what he might do, and would not do, to respond to Bashar al Asad’s use of chemical weapons. But there are a lot of other things on his mind as well: the impending Federal budget crisis, Congressional deadlock, and the slow economic recovery, not to mention tensions with Russia, the Iranian nuclear program, American withdrawal from Afghanistan and already bogged down talks between Israel and Palestine. I can’t imagine that he would have sat through an hour of others speechifying, except for this occasion.
The most important political signal of the day was who did not show up. The nation’s Republican leadership took a pass. This was not a good omen, as it confirms that the GOP is uninterested in minority votes. Blacks and hispanics would unquestionably be better off if both parties had to court their votes. I’d have expected at least George W. Bush, who appointed Condi Rice and Colin Powell to high office and had a position on immigration pretty close to that of Barack Obama. But today’s Republicans seem to be opting for disenfranchisement and gerrymandering of Congressional districts rather than an all-out effort to compete and break up the Obama rainbow coalition.
That’s too bad for minorities, but it is also a demographically fated strategy. Fifty years from now, we’ll only have a two-party system if Republicans change their approach. The only question is how long it will take them to turn around. Lincoln cannot be the lone Republican leader present at the 100th anniversary of the March on Washington.
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Needed: creative diplomats
An attack to punish Syria for its use of chemical weapons is on hold due to British parliament reservations. The American Congress also has reasonable questions it wants answered. The P5 (that’s the veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council, namely US, UK, France, Russia and China) met yesterday and failed to agree to a draft UK resolution authorizing all necessary means. President Obama is hesitating, or at least hoping for better conditions. He still has to present the case for military action to the American people, who haven’t forgotten the Bush Administration claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (and some even remember President Johnson’s Gulf of Tonkin incident). The UN chemical weapons inspectors are scheduled to leave Syria this weekend. If military action is in the cards, the earliest it is likely to happen is next week. The President is supposed to be at the G20 summit in Saint Petersburg September 5/6. It might be the better part of valor to wait until after that.
So there is time for diplomacy. The deal President Obama should be offering to Moscow is this: agree to implement the Geneva June 2012 communique, which calls for Bashar al Asad to hand executive power to a government approved by both the opposition and the regime, and we will desist from a military attack. That would save Russia the embarrassment of another Western military intervention without UN Security Council approval.
Iran, where there is admittedly some concern about the use of chemical weapons, might still prefer a military attack, because it would give its military a good deal of intelligence on current American capabilities. But if Russia pushes Bashar aside, Tehran will want to shift its support to ensure continuation of its alliance with Damascus. More than likely, it will put its chips down on one of the security force commanders, hoping that he can maintain the autocracy even if Bashar is a goner.
The trick is that a credible offer of a political solution can only be made if the threat of military attack is real and imminent. Otherwise Moscow can simply ignore the deal. Nor can the threat of military attack be a one-off, limited strike of the sort President Obama seems to think appropriate. To get Bashar to step aside, or to get Moscow to push him aside, will require a near certainty that failure to do so will lead to a military attack that tilts the battlefield against him and guarantees that his days are numbered. The notion that diplomacy will work without an “existential” threat is delusional. Diplomacy and military strategy have to be fully synchronized.
Won’t a short, focused military attack do the trick? No, it won’t. President Reagan tried that to retaliate against Libya for a terrorist attack on American service people in Germany. It had no serious impact on Qaddafi, except to make him a a bit crazier. Nor did the Clinton-era attack on an Al Qaeda facility in Afghanistan do anything to deter Osama Bin Laden. Pin pricks can be useless at best, counter-productive at worst, if they signal weakness or precipitate escalation. Bashar al Asad may well react to a well-targeted and narrow attack by using more chemical weapons.
The diplomats should focus then on two things:
- Making the military threat as real, broad and open-ended as possible by close consultations with whatever coalition of the willing can be hammered together over the next week;
- Getting Moscow to realize that it stands to lose more by backing Asad than by pushing him aside.
I doubt an effort along these lines will succeed, mainly because of the difficulties in mounting a credible existential threat. But that’s where creative diplomats come in.
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Bombing expectations
With the United States getting ready to bomb Syria in response to its government’s use of chemical weapons against its population, it is important to keep expectations in check. Bombing, especially if well-targeted and short duration, does not cause autocrats to give up power. Apart from a lucky shot that hits Bashar al Asad, the best that can be hoped for in Syria is that bombing may tilt the playing field back in the opposition direction, enabling the rebel forces to regain some lost ground or establish firmer control in areas where the regime has been using aircraft, missiles and artillery to disrupt opposition efforts to establish governing structures and begin to deliver services. In the best of all possible worlds, which of course is not the likeliest, this could create the kind of “mutually hurting stalemate” that would favor a negotiated outcome.
More likely a short and well-targeted bombing campaign will send no more than the message that future use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated. But Bashar al Asad wouldn’t be the first autocrat to respond to a well-calibrated message by upping the ante. That’s what Milosevic did in response to NATO’s bombing: he intensified the ethnic cleansing of Albanians from Kosovo. The Obama administration needs to be ready to extend and expand its bombing if Bashar chooses to use even more chemical weapons with greater abandon. Otherwise the red line won’t hold.
The big question mark is whether a bombing campaign, even of only a few days, will loosen Russian attachment to Bashar, or cause Moscow to hug him even tighter. Certainly it would be prudent to expect Putin to use the occasion to defy the Americans and continue his effort to reassert Russian great power status. But if in fact the Russians are convinced that Bashar used chemical weapons, that may put some daylight between them and their protégé. The Americans would be wise to use all the diplomatic means at their disposal to this end, as Russian withdrawal of support for Bashar could well be decisive in the Syrian civil war.
Another important question is whether bombing will give the Syrian opposition forces more reason to unify, better to win the day, or create incentives for even more violent clashes among revolutionary brigades, which are already too common. I can’t pretend to know which course they will take, but judging from their behavior thus far it would be reasonable to expect clashes as they compete to establish themselves and expand their territorial control.
Edward Luttwak, in a typically ill-considered piece, suggests in reference to the impending bombing:
At this point, a prolonged stalemate is the only outcome that would not be damaging to American interests.
That is just dead wrong. None of America’s interests in Syria’s territorial integrity, regional stability, preventing Syria’s use for terrorism or enforcing the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons is served by a prolonged stalemate. America’s best interest will be served by a stalemate that leads quickly to a negotiated solution, allowing the international community a modicum of say-so in who inherits Syria from the Asad regime.
Can bombing lead in that direction? Yes, it can, but a great deal depends on whether the opposition can get its act together and find a unified voice to speak for it at the negotiating table. Bombing brought about negotiated solutions in Bosnia and Kosovo, with semi-satisfactory outcomes many years later. Bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan led to collapsed regimes and long American military deployments, with far less satisfactory outcomes. I’ll take the semi-satisfactory outcome any day, though it may well require some sort of international force to stabilize Syria once Bashar is gone.
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Chemical reaction
It is difficult to believe that Bashar al Asad’s regime would use chemical weapons in a rural area on the outskirts of Damascus a day or so after the arrival of a UN chemical weapons inspection team. But that is apparently what he has done. Hundreds are reported dead. If this claim proves true, what are the options for the Obama administration?
- Do nothing. The administration has already ignored well-documented reports of chemical weapons use over the past year. Failing to react with anything but verbal condemnation will not stop the practice, but it would avoid a tussle with the Russians and limit US commitments.
- Try to get a UN Security Council resolution authorizing use of force or expanding sanctions. The Russians are unlikely to permit a resolution that goes that far, but it might be possible to get one that denounces the Asad regime and puts it on the diplomatic defensive, whatever good that will do.
- Press harder to convene peace talks. The Administration remains committed to following up the June 2012 Geneva communique by convening peace talks aimed at implementing a negotiated solution in which Bashar al Asad would have to surrender power to an interim government. Prospects for such talks are bleak (and the date has been postponed to the fall).
- Accelerate provision of weapons to the Syrian opposition. Washington, after indicating this spring it would arm the opposition in response to earlier reports of chemical weapons use, seems to have gotten cold feet, largely because of the prospect the arms would fall into extremist hands. Ignoring that prospect is risky.
- Attack Syrian missile and air force assets, even without UNSC authorization. Such an attack could be limited to the facilities thought to have originated chemical weapons attacks, or it could be much wider. Damaging the regime’s capability of reaching out to attack “liberated” areas could help the opposition gain strategic advantage, but doing it without UNSC authorization would trigger Russian responses Washington won’t like.
- Impose a “no fly, no missile” zone over all or part of Syria. This would require constant patrolling by US air assets that would be at risk of attack by Syria’s supposedly strong air defenses (which however have not responded to several Israeli attacks).
None of these propositions are very attractive, especially if you regard Iran’s nuclear program and American withdrawal from Afghanistan as far more important. Both require Russian cooperation that may not be available if the Americans decide to act unilaterally on Syria.
Weighing in favor of US action is the humanitarian situation and its impact on Syria’s neighbors. The US will spend upwards of $1 billion this year on humanitarian relief for the millions of Syrian refugees, internally displaced and needy whom Bashar al Asad has created with his effort to reassert governing authority in a country that has rejected his rule. A billion this year and a couple of billion next year. We are talking real money out of your taxpayer pocket.
More important for US strategic interests is the impact on neighboring countries. Iraq is suffering a sharp rise in Sunni terrorist attacks that stem from revival of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has extended itself also into Syria. Jordan is facing a colossal burden from hundreds of thousands of refugees, as is Lebanon, whose Hizbollah and Sunni militia forces are battling both inside Syria and sometimes at home. The Kurds of Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey will be meeting August 24 in Erbil to discuss strategy, which for the moment aims at Kurdish federal units within existing states. But if those states start to collapse, can an effort at Kurdish union be far behind?
The notion that Syria is not a priority can only be sustained if the trouble it causes can be contained. It is looking as if that is no longer going to be possible. It is time for the Obama administration to react to the use of chemical weapons, if confirmed. My own preference is number 5 above.
PS: Please do not look at these pictures that purport to be the results of the chemical attack today if you are at all squeamish about seeing dead people.
PPS: To cheer you up, try this from May, via Mike Doran:
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Peace picks July 29 – August 2
1. Squaring the circle: General Raymond T. Odierno on American military strategy in a time of declining resources, American Enterprise Institute, Monday, July 29, 2013 / 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Venue: American Enterprise Institute
1150 17th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20036
Speakers: Mackenzie Eaglen, General Raymond T. Odierno
With sequestration a reality and little hope for a bargain on the horizon, the US military is facing a steeper-than-planned defense drawdown that few wanted but fewer still seem to be willing or able to stop. What are the implications for the men and women of the US Army if the sequester stays on the books for the foreseeable future?
AEI’s Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies will host General Raymond Odierno, Chief of Staff of the US Army, for the second installment of a series of four events with each member of the Joint Chiefs.
Register for the event here:
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On to the next big thing
As I am going to be impolite further on, I’ll say first that I enjoyed yesterday’s CSIS conference on rethinking civilian stabilization and reconstruction. It opened with IRD President Arthur Keys offering a shopping list of good things, among which:
- civilian/military cooperation
- quick impact
- the need to be flexible, nimble and adaptable
- monitoring and evaluation of impact
- local engagement
- capacity building
- protection of vulnerable populations
Citing David Petraeus, he made the very good point that not preparing for stabilization and reconstruction won’t make the need go away.
Bob Lamb was a bit more edgy: the need won’t go away, but our civilian institutions are weak, despite the fact that they are the primary means by which the US government reacts to international contingencies. We know development needs to be led by locals because donors don’t know the terrain. Why don’t we do it? Then he asked the question he would repeat, without getting a satisfactory answer, throughout the day: why have our institutions not adopted the lessons learned? There is something about the political economy of our own institutions that prevents it, he suggested. There are also new directions we should be pursuing: women as peacemakers, geospatial data made widely available, and private sector action that supports stabilization efforts. The American people should not lose faith, but the “S&R” community needs to do things that will justify continued support.
In David Ignatius’ view, the withdrawals of our expeditionary armies from Iraq and Afghanistan create a power vacuum. We need new, civilian ways to project power. This is one of the most important challenges of our time. AID merely contracts out, USIP is not properly an instrument of national power, CSO (the Conflict and Stabilization Ops part of the State Department) is too small, the CIA is going back to its proper intelligence role and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are having trouble operating in non-permissive environments. The military has been used to fill the gap, but that won’t work in Egypt or Syria, which is a country on the verge of breakup.
Responding to David, Jim Dobbins underlined that all 20 international interventions since 1989 show positive outcomes: 16 have had peaceful outcomes (and all are showing progress in that direction) and all show economic growth, movement towards democracy, and sharp improvements in human development. This is especially the case where the entry of foreign troops has been consensual and the country in question of modest size. Ethnic diversity and poverty do not reduce the success rate. The keys to success lie in gaining the cooperation of neighbors and in coopting local elites. It is important to keep things in perspective: we’ve had a good deal of success.
On Afghanistan, Jim asks how the US can shape the political transition there. The international community will focus quite properly on whether the 2014 elections are free and fair. But the Afghans will focus on the outcome. What is needed is a new leader who, like Karzai, manages to create a patronage network and cobble together a cross-ethnic coalition that puts forward a multi-ethnic slate of candidates.
Whatever justifiable concerns there might be about corruption in such a patronage network, it is important to remember the progress Afghanistan has made on health, education and telecommunications. On indices of democracy and corruption, Afghanistan ranks more or less in the same league with neighboring countries. It takes time for formal institutions to work against against family, tribal and ethnic relationships.
As for our own institutions, Dobbins underlines that their inadequacy has been most apparent when US military forces are losing, which is when they call for civilian help. Security is vital, so adequate stabilization forces are the first requirement. AID, he suggested, should be AIR(reconstruction and)D. State should direct an enhanced civilian capacity. Where the United States has engaged in reconstruction, it is generally appreciated, but we clearly still have a problem in Egypt, Pakistan and in much of the rest of the Muslim world.
I skipped the mid-day sessions on Colombia, Liberia and South Sudan, so I can’t tell you what happened at those. But I was back in the room for Rob Jenkins, who leads AID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, which is certainly one of the stars in the US government’s firmament. Rob thought a lot had been accomplished in recent decades: a discipline has been created, even if we don’t really know what to call it. Stabilization is too low a bar and reconstruction is not really adequate. What we need now is a more data-driven process, though he was quick to admit that we can only make a contribution to preventing bad things from happening, not prove that we did.
That said, respect for local needs, engagement to encourage ownership, and local governance are clearly important. Transitions are generational (20-40 years), but Congress limits OTI’s engagement to three. The US government is more together than in the past. AID has people at all the combatant commands. Prevention is getting priority.
In response to Lamb’s constant question (why are the lessons learned not institutionalized?), Rob thought the fault lay with insufficient funding for contingencies and risk aversion. Experimentation, speed and agility are important, but everyone is worried about their next audit. Some lessons are overlearned.
CSO assistant secretary Rick Barton wrapped up this fine day with four points:
- We need a new optic: we are no longer doing post-conflict reconstruction as in Iraq and Afghanistan but rather supporting popular revolts in terribly violent conditions requiring greater speed and capacity than we’ve got. Military intervention is not where it’s at. It’s a golden moment for civilians.
- We also need organizational reform: policy and implementation need to be closer together, enabling earlier results. There needs to be a center of gravity for decisionmaking, not in the National Security Council, that takes responsibility and ensures coherence.
- Our analytical lens needs to be broader: we need to be talking with broader swathes of society, including silent majorities. Intelligence is too often driven by those with big budgets rather than the real needs.
- We need to expand local ownership, which is our only chance for success. To get out of interventions we need to pay attention to local priorities.
The big thing, Rick averred, is to appreciate the enormity of the challenges.
I do, and this event affirmed my view that no one from inside the system can answer Bob Lamb’s good question: why don’t we institutionalize the lessons? I’m afraid that the answer is the institutions we have are not learning machines. They weren’t established as such, and they have not developed in that direction. No one in them is rewarded for applying lessons learned. Unlike the military, where lessons learned get recycled to field commanders at times within 24 hours, State Department and USAID make sure the process is so slow no one will be paying attention by the time the lessons learned are formulated. On to the next big thing.
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